=== Feb 21 2007 Edit To Add ===
Launch inter-planetary communications protocol :- )
… Ichiro's agent, Tony Attanasio, told Times national baseball writer Larry Stone that his client's comments "were very real."
D-O-V translation: "Last warning. I'm leaving. Unless you win, and show me a team that will look the Oakland A's in the eye, and unless you suits talk to me reallllll sweet like all my countrymen do and like the Red Sox will, and unless you pay me as a HOF'er.
Not one of the four. All four of the four. And right now."
Ichiro "has been very disappointed over the last three years, more so than people would believe. But those who know him well understand that he was equally as disappointed as the fans and probably everyone on the Mariners to see what happened.
D-O-V translation: this team is a Loser, capital L. Don't take my classy reserve to mean that I'm not completely fed up with this joke of a team."
"That being said, what happens now will depend on a combination of a lot of things - what the Mariner organization thinks of Ichiro, how they view him and place him in various categories of his peers, and the performance of the team,'' Attanasio added.
D-O-V-T: "If you want to recruit me, tell me that you realize I'm one of the best 10 players in the game, an inner-circle HOF'er, and worth Soriano money at least. That is just to open negotiations. Repeat this message as many times as possible, HAL."
"Don't forget, when he first got here …. there was a certain character the team had."
D-O-V-T: "I have warned you before that I have a zero-tolerance level for teammates who mail in their seasons. I have warned you before that the coaching staff and their 'quality control' is a joke."
Attanasio expects negotiations to continue in coming days, but said the team has yet to make Ichiro an offer he could take seriously. "There hasn't been an offer that Ichiro would consider a legitimate offer,'' he said. "There's been some talk and discussions about getting to that point, but in Ichiro's view he has not seen a legitimate offer."
D-O-V-T: "To open negotiations would require an offer hard on the barrelhead, 7 years $125m+ (?? or much more). Dancing around the question with feeler conversations is of no interest to me. Make your offer or prepare for my free agency."
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=== It Don't Get Any Better Than This, Dept. ===
An HOF leadoff hitter in front of a great lineup is a beautiful thing. When the great #1 is combined with a scary lineup behind him, it puts the pitcher in a vise. Like in 2001: lousy pitchers implode, and good pitchers wind up yielding several runs. Such an offense scores runs on a game-in, game-out basis.
To watch Ichiro hit in front of an outstanding lineup … well, that's the kind of thing that makes baseball fun to watch.
And now that Ichiro is playing in CF, there isn't the slightest question as to whether he is an HOF-caliber leadoff hitter. The Mariners are going to lose Ichiro just as he becomes a dominating defensive CF?
For those who just joined us, David Pinto's PMR had some scary-good center field numbers for Ichiro at the end of last year. You know and I know that Ichiro is going to RAMBBBLLLLE. He plays CF more aggressively than he does RF, plays a little shallower, takes gorgeous angles, moves with such utter mastery of the game.
He's just so pretty to watch out there.
.
=== Cliches 101 Dept. ===
Q: "They can't afford to let him go at the end of the season and get nothing for him?"
Actually, if the Mariners use Ichiro this year and then let him go, they will get (1) $20m+ of performance for $11m, a net $9m performance profit, and (2) the draft picks.
As well, you get the $20m worth of players on next winter's FA market. (For $20m, you will NOT be able to purchase players who deliver as much value as Ichiro does. Three decent players are not equal to one HOF player plus two open slots in the lineup.)
Watching Ichiro play CF will be a pure joy. It will be a bittersweet, farewell great season, but it will still be a great season from him.
.
=== Dr's Prescription Dept. ===
All that said, the Mariners need an identity. Being unsure of who you are as a ballclub is a huge, overarc'ing negative.
If it's me: Ichiro gets a 7/$140m offer, right now. If he doesn't take it, he gets traded. For ARod, or Manny, or three great prospects, or whatever.
…………………..
Again, you deal Ichiro for ARod, you get a bonus: Yuniesky Betancourt has colossal trade value. You could probably get a MLB-ready blue-chip starting pitcher for him. Betancourt and ? for Jonathan Papelbon or Jeremy Bonderman or some pitcher like that would probably be feasible. Names like Carl Crawford would probably come up.
What I don't do, is sit there afraid of making a decision. I pull a Billy Beane. I rip up the paper, grab a blank sheet, and draw up a pennanwinner on it.
=== Jan 2007 Original "Joy Of Shedding Ichiro" ===
… who is my favorite baseball player, ever. (Also see Top 10 Reasons to Trade Ichiro.)
The first being Johnny Bench 1971, on through Joe Morgan 1975, degenerating down to Enrique Romo and Floyd Bannister and Ken Phelps, but then up to Jay Buhner 1989, Randy Johnson 1993, falling back to Edgar 1998, and on to Ichiro in April 2001.
I like Ichiro better than I liked Steve Largent, better than I liked Jack Sikma, better than Lou, better than anybody. Ichiro is whatever comes after cool.
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=== Bettah Do SOMEfing Dept. ===
We is older than 93.78% of you Gen X'ers and since about 1980 …. I have been able to identify a sports LOSER when it is in front of me.
Losing ballclubs do not look the other team in the eye, so losing ballclubs go on 19-game losing streaks to their division rivals.
Losing ballclubs spend lots and lots of time worrying about clubhouse pecking order, and little time worrying about how to put a professional AB onto an All-Star pitcher's backside. They go up whaling away and hoping the ball falls in somewhere, or that the pitcher will blunder…
Chuck Armstrong & Co. have turned this franchise into one of the most weak-kneed loser franchises I have ever had the displeasure of watching. (We mean it in a good way.)
By contrast, Ichiro is a champion. If he signed another contract with this team, I'd lose respect for him. I mean it seriously, dispassionately, and soberly.
…………………………..
Needless to say, Attanasio is going to be spending the 2007 season talking about how much Ichiro loves the community, and how he has an excellent working relationship with the Mariners. These sub-facts even happen to be true. And these sub-facts have absolutely nothing to do with the Grand Theme: Ichiro's (non-)willingness to play out an Ernie Banks career for a pride-less, soul-less loser.
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=== What Does It Cost NOT To Deal Him?, Dept. ===
So you think that the Boston Red Sox would not trade you Manny Ramirez for Ichiro? And what else did you want with Manny? (Adam Jones takes over in center, with Vidro going to supersub.)
You think the New York Yankees would not trade you Alex Rodriguez for Ichiro? Give them a signing window and they'd trade you even-steven. And say please. I bet they'd also give you Hughes for a pedestrian spect, but that's just me.
The truly thrilling part of an Ichiro/ARod deal? Wait for it: trading Yuniesky Betancourt.
Get over the paradigm paralysis, the one that over-values pretty defense and the one that assumes YuBet WILL become Barry Larkin. (He might.) Think instead about YuBet's 90 OPS+ and his league-average numbers at SS. YuBet has great potential, but right now the Mariners don't need potential. They need to convert that 90 OPS+ and that supposedly-wicked glove into a real franchise player, like Peavy or Crawford or LaRoche or somebody.
Think about the trade package you could get back for this kid. YuBet & ? for Carl Crawford? Or fill in your own blank.
You don't like those two trades, work out your own. But you had better believe that if Dr. D magically became the GM tomorrow, the first two things he would start with, would be (1) trading Ichiro and (2) trading Yuniesky Betancourt.
(Can ARod still play short? Of course; don't be silly. He's a depth-range-and-arm guy. He'll play short till 40, like Ripken. And check his speed scores.)
……………………………
You think you couldn't get the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees into a bidding war for Ichiro? …. you could.
You want prospects back for Ichiro? Would love to see your scenarios. But don't forget you can only play 9 guys at a time, and Clement-Jones are about as good as anybody you'd get back in the minors…
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=== Wake Up and Smell the Java Dept. ===
It's too late with Ichiro. I'm telling you here and now, he's had three years' worth of the "gut full of pus'" in Seattle, as the Great White Hunter so bizarrely put it, and he's not coming back. Playoffs or no, he is well and truly DISGUSTED with everything in this organization from Lincoln to Hargrove's lowest flunky.
Ichiro isn't complaining to a reporter after a loss. Wake up and smell the sushi. Ichiro has had enough. And he was over-patient in taking this long about it.
If the Mariners cling to a hope of re-signing Ichiro, that will be the worst kind of wishful thinking. That's a surgeon making an emotional decision about the patient under the knife; it's a President setting century-making foreign policy on poll numbers. The Mariners can't afford to indulge their emotions and spend the year hoping they can talk Ichiro out of leaving. Never happen.
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=== Quick, the Good News Dept. ===
But the Mariners offered Barry Zito $16.5m per year to come here, and that's after Batista and Vidro. That's the good news: $10-17m in payroll space, and Ichiro's trade return, and YuBet's trade return. A smart GM — that's not Chuck Armstrong, unfortunately — could absolutely re-make the franchise in one month. I'm available, Chris… get ridda those losers, lemme keep Pelekoudas to handle the phone, and we'll pull the Jimmy Johnson shtick for ya :- )
There are two players available who can sponge up the Zito money: Manny and ARod. Those are the cash stashes who make sense.
Offloading Ichiro's deal means you even have money to spare, relative to a Zito signing. Cool. YuBet for Crawford, or Peavy, or whoever those "names you'd be shocked at" have been, as MLB teams pound the M's door down for YuBet.
…………………………..
Too late to get rid of Hargrove and too early to vote out Lincoln and Armstrong. But it's exactly the right time to cash in Ichiro and/or JuBet.
Cheers,
Dr D
